Annual Management Report
A year in facts and figures - 2022
Executive summary
The Annual Management Report - Executive summary is also available in PDF
The Annual Management Report is available in PDF
Foreword
Interview with
Petr BLÍŽKOVSKÝ
Secretary-General of the European Committee of the Regions and Chair of the Management Committee of the Publications Office
Question | The presidency of the European Committee of the Regions put emphasis on maximising interinstitutional synergies and on making sure that information and data reach citizens in the language they understand. What achievements did the past year bring in these areas?
Petr Blížkovský | 2022 was a year in which the Office made considerable steps forward in bringing information and data closer to the citizen, helping the EU institutions to speak with a single voice. With its enhanced offer to help authors in the institutions target their publications and measure the impact these publications have on their audience, the Office made a tangible contribution to bringing to the citizen what the EU does and means for them. Making publications available in all EU languages, and providing them in a way that is accessible for persons with disabilities, is another field where the Office provided most useful expertise and services to all EU institutions. Finally, to bring a complex idea to a wider audience, visualisation is an invaluable tool. Here too, the Office serves as a centre of excellence, serving all institutions.
To make the most of data, information and knowledge, interoperability is key. Interoperability requires standardisation. I am very pleased that the reference data management services which the Office has developed over the past years, are now available to all institutions. Together with the revamped Interinstitutional Style Guide , which the Office manages and coordinates, and the considerable progress that has been made on the new interoperability format for the interinstitutional legislative process, this constitutes a solid base for true interoperability in practice.
Question |How did the Office do in making its services known to the public?
Petr Blížkovský | Based on discussions with all EU institutions in the Management Committee which I chair, the Office worked on several new ways to help users discover the Office’s full offer of services more easily, and thereby significantly increase that offer’s uptake. Central to this work is to create a network of ‘multipliers’, identifying and prioritising actors and channels that can amplify the outreach of the Office’s services. The Councilors’ network of the Committee of the Regions representing an estimated 1.2 million locally and regionally elected councilors across the EU is a prime example, and so are chambers of commerce, law faculties or relevant library networks.
A second initiative to further increase the uptake of the Office’s services, strongly supported by the Management Committee, is to create a ‘family’ of ‘EU’ brands with common naming and visual identity. The aim of this common branding is to reflect a unity of purpose between the services provided by the Office on behalf of the EU institutions, enhance findability and make the process of disseminating data and information more efficient and effective. The process is well underway, and I look forward to seeing the final results!
Interview with
Hilde HARDEMAN
Director-General of the Publications Office of the European Union
Question | Your first year in office as Director-General coincided with a serious threat for peace and security in the European Union and the world: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. How has Russia’s aggression impacted the activities of the Office?
Hilde Hardeman This is indeed a most challenging time, with armed conflict at the heart of our continent. The staff of the Publications Office has worked tirelessly to help deliver the EU’s response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified aggression, and has done its utmost to ensure quick and easy access to relevant data and information. In addition, colleagues have contributed in every way they could to supporting people from Ukraine, both those who sought protection in the EU, and those who remain in Ukraine. For example, our team of data visualisation experts, graphic designers, linguists and printing specialists worked against the clock to produce a pictogram dictionary to help Ukrainian children in the EU and people supporting them to communicate. This attractive booklet, available in all EU languages and Ukrainian, was for much of 2022 our most downloaded publication. Further, in an operation of unprecedented scale, funded by the Erasmus+ programme and in cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Education, our team ensured that more than half a million schoolbooks for Ukrainian language teaching was produced and distributed to schoolchildren in Ukraine.
Clearly, the overall impact of the war on the global economy affects us in many ways. We are doing what we can to make the most of available resources, in a truly concerted effort of all staff, and will continue doing everything possible to contribute to the EU’s work in support of Ukraine.
Question | What other notable developments would you mention regarding the Office in 2022?
Hilde Hardeman We worked hard on raising the profile of the Office among our stakeholders, and in particular on making sure that the services we offer bring true added value for our institutional clients and the public. For example, data visualisation is a powerful tool that we draw on to make our offer as relevant and easy to understand as possible, reach diverse audiences, and thereby optimise outreach and impact. The data visualisation services we provide to all EU institutions are in high demand, and so are the reference data management services we make available in our role as centre of excellence for data, information and knowledge management.
Strengthening the resilience of European democracy is an overarching challenge. The Office’s work in providing authentic and trustworthy information on the EU is crucial, especially so against the background of growing disinformation. To help make sure that the data and information we provide are easily findable, accessible and relevant to our users, we see opportunities for using artificial intelligence. This must be done in an ethical, trustworthy, transparent and accountable way. The Office has launched three flagship projects and a community of practice around artificial intelligence in 2022, which brings together all our staff. We must all be fully aware, not only of the opportunities artificial intelligence brings, but also of the risks it entails and how to address those.
All this is possible only thanks to the daily work of the highly committed and qualified team with which I have the privilege to work. Despite the pressure on the labour market, particularly so in Luxembourg, the Office managed to attract several talented new colleagues in 2022. Making sure that the Office is an attractive place where people are happy and proud to work is for us a key objective.
Executive summary
Main achievements
Management of the Publications Office of the European Union
2022 was another challenging year for the Publications Office of the European Union (the Office), marked by the end of the specific measures relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, and by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The Office faced a high workload with tight deadlines in publishing the EU’s response through restrictive and other measures, a critical and important task. Its activities as a centre of excellence for data, information and knowledge management developed considerably.
The need to ensure seamless, secure delivery of top-quality service, against a background of tightening budgetary and human resources, exacerbated by inflation and the energy and supply-chain crises, led the Office to reassess its delivery models, highlighting the need for simplification and streamlining wherever possible. Defining how best to use resources to optimise the added value and impact of the Office’s work for its institutional clients and for citizens and businesses was a key concern. Ensuring that the Office is an attractive, motivating and fulfilling workplace for its staff, along with bringing in new colleagues, was given top priority.
2022 was the last full year for the Office at its current premises. Preparations for the move to the new, energy-efficient Mercier-Post building intensified, keeping staff actively involved.
Strategic objectives
The steady implementation of the seven strategic objectives, which combine the mission of the Office as a provider of publishing and data management services with a clearly defined role in support of EU policymaking, continued throughout 2022, as highlighted below.
Digital european legal space
The Office made significant progress in bringing national law closer to EU citizens, eliminating several barriers to smooth navigation in the digital European legal space. Firstly, the texts of national transposition measures for four more Member States are now published on EUR-Lex; altogether, transposition measures for 16 Member States can now be consulted via EUR-Lex. Secondly, searching through millions of national judgments was made possible in 2022 through the reuse of the European case-law identifier (ECLI) search engine on EUR-Lex (1). Finally, the N-Lex portal was revamped for better usability, and preparatory work was carried out to improve search possibilities in the national legal databases through the use of the European legislation identifier (ELI) and its metadata.
The work on the Joint Legislative Portal (JLP), the future interinstitutional gateway to information on the state of play of legislative files, has progressed substantially: functional specifications are ready and data impact analysis is finalised. The IT developments will start in spring 2023 for the first version of JLP to be available by the end of 2023.
To allow for easier access to EU law, especially for a non-expert audience, the ‘EU Law in Force’ (the beta version of which had been developed in 2021) was further improved and opened to the public in 2022. The experience with the site and the feedback received from its users will help to define the future EUR-Lex display intended for the general public.
Public procurement data space
The Office implemented eForms on 14 November 2022 as planned, in compliance with the eForms regulation and its amendment (2). eForms are standard forms used by public buyers to publish notices on the TED website. The use of standard forms will facilitate interoperability and reuse of data. This is very useful when dealing with information that needs to be published at both the national and the European levels.
The development of the new TED website has started, and the site is planned to be in place by end 2023. It will be able to publish both current standard procurement forms and future eForms. There will provide for easier and more user friendly access to public procurement data and bulk data, and for the extraction of statistical data. Enhanced search and display of results functions will improve transparency and facilitate access to public procurement data.
TED data will be available as open data on the basis of the eProcurement ontology. The data will be fed into the future public procurement data space.
Under the preparatory action on transparency in public procurement, the Office launched various work strands to further improve the quality, availability, interoperability and readability of procurement data.
European open data space
The European open data space provides services that connect data providers and data reusers. The official portal for European data , data.europa.eu, is the central point of access to open data, connecting data from various public administrations. To better understand users and their needs, and thus set up more efficient citizen-centric services, a user survey was carried out. To engage with this community, 30 data stories were published. These explain concepts such as linked open data and high-value datasets.
The portal was completely redesigned. New functionalities and a more powerful search function make it easier to use, understand and navigate the data and information provided on the portal. The new functionalities include preview, data storage and citation functionalities. The new version is more accessible and fully responsive.
In the new data providers’ area which the Office set up, data providers can upload and store the data behind their datasets.
The metadata quality dashboard provides real-time feedback on the quality of the metadata of catalogues, datasets and their distributions. A new tool to analyse the quality of data was added.
The data.europa academy continued to offer learning material to help make society more data literate. In addition, a training package for data providers and a DataViz training programme were offered. The EU Datathon 2022 competition received a record number of applications. The live-streamed competition’s finals brought together 12 winning teams.
The 2022 edition of the open data maturity report was published.
Following the adoption of the Data Governance Act (3), the European single access point, which the act provides for, will be established on data.europa.eu. This will be accompanied by technical guidelines to explain to Member States how to harvest the data concerned by the act.
Interinstitutional legal publications support
The adaptation of all information systems involved in the production of the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) has progressed, so that the Office can start with the act-by-act publication of the OJ as soon as conditions allow in 2023. With the act-by-act publication of the OJ, acts will no longer be combined and published together as a gazette. Instead, each act will be published as soon as it is ready for publication, independently of other acts. This will allow for a more flexible, faster and simplified way of publishing. A communication campaign towards all stakeholders to heighten their awareness of this important change is underway.
The Office made progress on the implementation of the Interinstitutional Budget Information System (IBIS), a secure, state-of-the-art digital solution, which will support the EU’s annual budgetary procedure, enabling the sharing of data and collaborative working practices. This solution is being designed to optimise user experience in terms of both functionality and user interface. It will also provide flexibility for the EU institutions’ staff in terms of how, when and where they work, along with more standardisation in the way IT tools and information are used.
Optimised publishing services
The Office already offers production services for a wide range of output formats, from the identification and production of a publication to the distribution and preservation of the end products. To complement these services, the Office further enlarged its service offer with pre- and post-production services, completing the full cycle of publishing services, from programming and planning to feedback on performance. Editorial advice and performance measurement are now available to all institutions. A collaborative planning tool for publications is now available to all services of the European Commission, following the Corporate Management Board’s green light to scale-up this offer. The Office’s new services are designed to help author services to increase the efficiency of their planning, to identify redundant or underperforming publications, to improve cost-efficient production and concentrate resources and efforts on impactful communication activities. This increases the outreach and effectiveness of communication activities and, ultimately, interest and trust in EU information and the EU institutions. Support and guidelines for accessible publishing – in the form of a website, training and a drafting tool to prepare accessible content – have been deployed and further enhanced in 2022.
As domain leader in the field of publications, the Office has created a professionalisation and engagement programme for the community of practice: the offer of e-learning modules and tutorials has been enriched, a shared space for the community of practice launched at the end of 2021 has been the basis to organise a forum for the community of practice in order to share knowledge and best practices, and the Office has released four issues of the Publish smart newsletter.
Standardisation services for interoperability
Under the auspices of the Interinstitutional Metadata and Formats Committee (IMFC) coordinated by the Office, institutions adopted a new version of AKN4EU (4.1). The Office further marked important progress in developing conversion and validation services relating to AKN4EU with a view to their implementation as from March 2023. On the metadata side of standardisation, institutions agreed on the scenario of the interinstitutional metadata exchange protocol (IMMC) evolution as proposed by the Office, based on the coexistence of two schemas, each with their specific business focus.
The Office established itself as a reference data management competence centre offering a comprehensive service package. In February 2022, the Commission’s Information Management Steering Board (IMSB) confirmed this service package as a corporate offering within the Commission. The Office further took an active part in ensuring a prominent place for corporate reference data policy in the rolling action plan of the IMSB and co-chaired the related activities.
A new version of the Interinstitutional Style Guide (ISG) was published in a redesigned user-friendly PDF format. Institutions welcomed new outreach activities, which were inaugurated during an event in the EC Library in November 2022.
The Office, jointly with DG Informatics and with support from the Interoperable Europe programme, advanced preparations for the second edition of the European data conference on reference data and semantics (ENDORSE 2023). The conference, planned for March 2023, will focus on practical use cases of reference data and semantic technologies in a multilingual context.
Connecting and preserving knowledge and content
The start of the year saw the formal launch of the first phase of the EU legal deposit scheme covering publications and websites. Actions were taken to raise awareness of the scheme and its benefits, for instance through a seminar devoted to the topic open to colleagues from all institutions.
The EC Library completed its integration in the Office and further enhanced its role as a key service providing data, research and information management services in support of evidence-based policymaking. Among the key achievements in 2022 are the conclusion of a major interinstitutional framework contract for databases, datasets and periodical publications, further rationalisation of acquisitions at the Commission and interinstitutional level, and the launch of new library research products in support of the policymaking process.
Service offer of the Publications Office of the European Union
Centred around these seven strategic objectives, the Office provides a range of services for the production, access to, reuse and long-term preservation of public information and data. With the help of data visualisation, the graph below sets out in an easily understandable way the full range of services which the Office provides to the EU institutions and to the public.
2022 Highlights
Digital European legal space
- 'EU Law in Force' user-friendly access to applicable EU legal rules – launched.
- Joint Legislative Portal: functional requirements defined.
public procurement data space
- eForms for procurement notices – launched.
- Preparatory action on transparency in public procurement – started.
European open data space
- Redesign and new functionalities on data.europa.eu.
- EU Datathon 2022: 156 submissions from 38 countries.
Interinstitutional legal publications support
- Adaptation of the information systems for the act-by-act publication of the OJ.
- Development of the new information system supporting the interinstitutional EU budget procedure underway.
Optimised publishing services
- First forum of the Smart publishing community of practice to persons with disabilities.
- Editorial advice and publication performance measurement available for all institutions.
Standardisation services for interoperability
- The Office recognised as the Commission’s corporate competence centre for reference data management.
- Interinstitutional Style Guide – New release.
Connecting and preserving content and knowledge
- EU legal deposit scheme covering publications and websites – First phase.
- EC Library – Major interinstitutional framework contract for subscriptions to databases, datasets, specialist periodical publications and other e-resources.
Key facts and figures for 2022
About this publication
Manuscript completed in March 2023
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Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2023
© European Union, 2023
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The Annual Management Report 2022 - Publications Office of the European Union
Print ISBN 978-92-78-43405-2 ISSN 1977-5911 doi:10.2830/485896 OA-AS-23-001-EN-C
PDF ISBN 978-92-78-43404-5 ISSN 2363-2747 doi:10.2830/07773 OA-AS-23-001-EN-N
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